Manufacturing Execution Systems in the Food Industry: Implementation and Performance

Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) are production and tracking systems used to analyze and report manufacturing processes in a wide range of industrial contexts. In the food industry, this tracking and reporting is especially important due to the industry’s focus on product traceability and safety. Currently, MES systems are also implemented to improve manufacturing performances with a positive impact on company financial objectives. Previous academic studies and white papers are generally dedicated to discuss MES benefits or to assist manufacturers and associated support organizations in evaluating and selecting the best MES software. However, MES system implementation brings with it many critical aspects that directly affect in practice its real potential and operational reliability, determining the real length of the investment pay back period. Among others, the difficulty in integrating MES with other software, the large investment initially required, and the need of large programming time. This work intends to develop a conceptual framework that can be applied to analyze and evaluate MES investment alternatives and forecasting future MES performances according to the return of the investment. Four critical decision variables are identified and discussed in the framework by a qualitative approach, which is grounded in the literature and supplemented by practical experiences. Finally, a milk supply chain case study is presented and discussed to illustrate the decision support functionalities of the conceptual framework proposed.